Verdun 1916

by J E Kauffman

  On February 24, Joffre concluded that one man needed to take command of the situation on the left bank. At 11 pm, he telephoned the 2nd Army headquarters to notify General Pétain that he was assigned that mission. That same night, Joffre had dispatched General Castelnau, his chief-of-staff, to Verdun and authorized him to implement any measures he felt necessary. Castelnau arrived at Avize, south of Reims, midway between Chantilly and Verdun, at 5.00 am on 25 February. An hour later, he issued the following order: ‘The Meuse must be held on the right bank. There can be no question of any other course than of checking the enemy, cost what it may, on that bank.’ Nothing would have pleased Falkenhayn more had he known about this order. The French were taking his bait. The Crown Prince and Knobelsdorf, on the other hand, would not have rejoiced to hear about this decision. President Raymond Poincaré and Prime Minister Aristide Briand made it clear to Joffre that he must hold Verdun. Joffre gave no indication that he disagreed, especially after a year of offensives that had ended in defeat.45

  Timeline

  The events of February 1916 are not only confusing but also controversial in some cases. The following information comes from Joffre and Pétain, but the accuracy of some of it may be questionable. Although Joffre always insisted that he had never wanted to abandon the right bank of the Meuse, there is a possibility that he may have made the decision to hold it only after a visit from the prime minister of France. None of the general officers described the weather in detail, besides mentioning that it had snowed before and after the battle began. They are equally unclear on the subject of the condition of the troops. According to Pétain, the troops of the XXX Corps ‘exhibited astonishing, almost incredible, heroism’ and that ‘every centre of resistance, whether it were a wood, a village, a network of destroyed trenches, or a chaotic group of shell-holes, was used by our units and became the scene of gallant deeds …’.* Pétain did not mention who was at fault or the broken troops streaming back from the front. Accounts about actual conditions on the battlefield tend to be rather sterile. Pétain does not even mention that he had come down with pneumonia.

  The basic facts can be summarized as follows:

  21 February: Bombardment began in the morning. Late afternoon, the German infantry advanced on possibly snow-covered ground expecting virtually no resistance. Despite the destruction of many trenches and shelters, they encountered stiff resistance in many places and from Driant’s chasseurs in Bois de Caures. Many pockets of French resistance checked the German advance, but Haumont Woods fell.

  22 February: Germans repeated the procedure of the previous day. The German infantry of the VII Reserve Corps took the towns of Haumont and Brabant. The XVIII Corps cleared most of Caures Woods. The III Corps advanced deep into Herbebois Woods. The French 72nd Division suffered heavy losses. The French 51st Division hung on to many of its positions. The 37th Division, consisting of North African troops, moved onto the east bank, but its regiments entered the battle piecemeal for the next three days to plug gaps. The weather, like the previous night, was wintry and bad. There is no consensus between various sources on whether Brabant was lost on 22 or 23 February. According to the Crown Prince, it fell on 23 February.

  23 February: The XVIII Corps cleared the remainder of Caures Woods that day and the III Corps swept Herbebois Woods that evening. German troops advanced south engaging the French at Beaumont. Troops of the VII Reserve Corps marched on Samogneux. The French held their positions between Samogneux, Beaumont and Ornes until the evening. That night, General Herr ordered the XXX Corps to take up positions on a line between Vacherauville, Côte de Talou, Côte du Poivre, Louvemont and Bezonvaux.

  24 February: Samogneux fell just before sunrise. The VII Reserve Corps took Hill 344. The XVIII Corps and III Corps moved through Fosses Woods. The III Corps swept through Chaume Woods, Carrière and Vavette and advanced upon Bezonaux, while the V Reserve Corps infantry moved on Ornes. The Germans broke through the entire position between Samogneux and Beaumont within a few hours. Herr ordered bridges and forts prepared for demolition. Herr and de Langle decided to evacuate the right bank. Late that night, Joffre sent Castelnau to investigate and to take charge.

  25 February: French outposts pulled back to the heights from the Woëvre. German troops moved onto Poivre Hill (ridge) and Louvemont fell. The III Corps captured Fort Douaumont. The entire position on the east bank was near collapse. The French XX Corps took over the defence of the east bank. Pétain arrived at Verdun in the early evening, and Castelnau informed him he was to command the entire sector instead of the left bank only. Pétain designated the final defence line on the right bank and ordered the restoration of the forts to operational status.

  ‘Considering the terrific force of the enemy’s drive – stated Pétain – the fact that Verdun was still in our possession on February 25th constituted really a success.’*

  * Pétain, Verdun, p. 63.

  * Pétain, Verdun, p. 83.

  Drawing of the German attack on Fort Douaumont, February 1916.

  At about 8.00 am on the morning of 25 February, Pétain reported to Joffre for his instructions. He then drove to Verdun where he arrived in the evening after having travelled over sleet- and snow-covered roads in an open car. The next morning he was diagnosed with double pneumonia. Meanwhile, at 3.30 pm (French time), General Castelnau informed Joffre over the telephone that Herr was ‘fatigued to the point of depression’ from the events of the past few days, that he could no longer inspire his troops and that his staff was in no condition to support him. The best chance to save the situation, Castelnau opined, was to give Pétain command of both banks. When Pétain reached Souilly at about 7.00 pm, he met with Castelnau and de Langle. ‘The reports were coming in slowly, – he complained – and seemed disturbing.’* He decided to drive on to Herr’s headquarters at Dugny. On his way there, he came across long columns of troops blocking the roads, an endless line of supply convoys forging their way towards Verdun and a horde of fleeing civilian refugees. At Herr’s headquarters, he found out that despite the XX Corps’ valiant effort to maintain control of Douaumont village, Fort Douaumont had fallen earlier in the day to troops of the Prussian III Corps.46

  That same night, at 11.00 pm (French time), General Castelnau informed Herr that he was now under Pétain’s command. By this time, major reinforcements were reaching the front lines. The I Corps had detrained the previous day and the XIII Corps that very day. Additional artillery batteries taken from three new corps, according to Pétain, were also arriving. The next day, 26 February, some of these units reached the front. Late in the evening of 25 February, Pétain telephoned General Balfourier (XX Corps) on the east bank and General Bazelaire (VII Corps) on the west bank to inform them he was now in command. Their responses bolstered his confidence in their performance. Shortly after that, just past midnight on 26 February, Pétain and his chief-of-staff reviewed the situation and prepared orders for every unit under his command during the next several hours. Despite his illness, Pétain worked tirelessly.

  A New Command, 26 February–1 March 1916

  General Pétain began his first day of command with double pneumonia. Refusing to rest and recover despite being 60 years old, he involved himself heavily in directing operations in less than healthy conditions. He was concerned about the loss of Fort Douaumont and Poivre Hill since this meant that the northern part of the front was on the verge of collapse with only two ouvrages and a poorly prepared defence line left between Douaumont and the Meuse. The shattered XXX Corps had to withdraw and rebuild. Generals Bapst (72nd Division), Bonneval (37th Division) and Chrétien (XXX Corps) served as Joffre’s scapegoats.47 Pétain’s staff was on the way and his 2nd Army moved out of reserve to take over the Verdun Front. Joffre gave him tactical control of the 3rd Army on his left flank.

  Pétain’s final line of defence on the east bank and northern front ran from Thiaumont to Souville. The general wanted to keep the front between those forts as close to Fort Douaumont as possible. The eastern fr
ont ran through the forts of Vaux, Tavannes and Moulainville. On the west bank, the line stretched from Cumières to Le Mort Homme, Hill 30 and Avocourt. His Operations Order No. 1 specified that the mission of his army was ‘to check at all costs the attacks of the enemy; to retake at once all lost ground’ and for every man to do his best to hold the specified line. He designated the forts on this line as dominant positions because, after all, they occupied key points, some had turret guns and all had survived up to that point without significant damage. Pétain realized that most of these forts were better built than those that had fallen during the Battle of the Frontiers in 1914 and that they did not operate in isolation. On 26 February, he divided his front into sections. General Guillaumat’s (I Corps) Group with 1st and 2nd divisions stood astride the Meuse and extended to the east. General Balfourier’s (XX Corps) Group with the 14th, 39th, 51st and 153rd divisions held the Meuse Heights between Douaumont and Fort Vaux. General Bazelaire’s (VII Corps) was west of the Meuse. The II and XIV Corps held the front on the east bank between Fort Moulainville and Éparges. Except for the remnants of the XXX Corps, there were no reserves. The XIII and XXI Corps were heading for Verdun and the XXXIII Corps was not far behind. Pétain asked Joffre to send more artillery instead of all these infantry divisions. The French had little room to manoeuvre on the east bank while the Germans held the dominant position of Fort Douaumont, the best observation point in the area. The French intended to fight to the death for Verdun from the east bank, and if necessary, from the west bank.

  The Big Picture

  The participants’ recollections of the first critical days of the Battle of Verdun vary substantially. According to General Erich von Falkenhayn, the bombardment began on 21 February and it was followed by ‘a successful infantry attack … carried out with an irresistible impetus, and the enemy’s first lines were simply overrun’. He concluded that ‘the advanced fortifications, constructed in peace, [could not] stop the brave attackers, although these works were not much damaged by our artillery’.* Actually, the only French fort that fell was Douaumont, which – he claimed – was ‘stormed’ by the 24th Brandenburg Infantry Regiment on 25 February. In the days that followed, Falkenhayn recalled, the Crown Prince’s staff had to halt the advance because of violent counter-attacks mounted by hastily collected French troops, but his soldiers repelled these attacks everywhere and inflicted heavy casualties.48

  Crown Prince Wilhelm, more closely involved in the battle, provided a more accurate description. By the evening of 24 February, his army ‘held the whole of the enemy’s main position!’ and had not only shattered the defensive system of the French but had broken their morale. In his memoirs, he wrote that the French ‘had nowhere been able to put up an effective resistance, and all his works, batteries and communications in his back areas as far as Verdun itself lay exposed to the effective and harassing fire of our artillery’. This was the time when his army had to prepare to smash the ‘tottering edifice of his defence’ before the French reserves arriving by lorry from Clermont could bolster the defences.** On 25 February, French artillery on the west bank brought the 77th Brigade to a standstill in attacking the Talou Heights. The XVIII Corps in heavy fighting took Louvemont and the northeastern slopes of the Côte du Poivre. The III Corps passed through Chauffour Wood while one of its companies from the 24th Regiment took Fort Douaumont. The III Corps drove the French from the ridge between Douaumont and Bezonvaux. The V Reserve and XV Corps pushed across the Woëvre. On the Meuse Heights, his troops fought off violent counter-attacks.

  The 5th Army headquarters ordered the heavy artillery of the attacking corps to move forward on the night of 25 February. However, the Crown Prince claimed that his only reserve was the 14th Reserve Division, which had already been engaged during the first days of the attack. The promised reinforcements from Falkenhayn had not arrived. The Crown Prince complained that the XXII Reserve Corps, allotted to Army Detachment Strantz, had been left on the Woëvre and that Falkenhayn only dispatched the Bavarian Ersatz Division to Strantz, a unit not fit for offensive action. The French had been broken, he insisted, and he was ‘within a stone’s throw of victory’ but had no reserves left to finish the job. His exhausted soldiers could not do it. In addition, instead of snowing, it rained turning the ground into a quagmire and filling even the smallest shell holes with water. Troop movement was hindered for days. Prince Wilhelm guessed that his chances of victory had slipped away on the night of 25 February when the French XX Corps reached the front.

  * Falkenhayn, General Headquarters, p. 233.

  ** William, My War Experience.

  The events of 26–9 February are not clear, beside the facts that Pétain restored order and that the French were holding their ground. In a post-war account, historian Count Charles de Souza asserts that during those four days, the defenders strength increased as ‘German assaulting waves dashed themselves in vain against the Talou heights, the Pepper (Poivre) Ridge, and the Vaux position.’* The Germans ‘were ripped open with cannon, broken by the French bayonets, and driven back with fearful slaughter, time and again’ until their battered units withdrew having lost 60,000 in a single week. As can be expected, his account exaggerates German losses. It places the French casualties at 20,000 when they were actually closer to 30,000. The Germans lost only a few thousand men less than the French did. Actually, at the end 25 February, the 37th Division had lost 30 per cent of its men (about 4–5,000 men) and the 72nd Division’s casualties were 10,000 men leaving only 3,000 survivors. The 51st Division suffered 6,400 casualties. If these figures are correct, the numbers were a little over 20,000 for these 3 divisions alone.

  On 26 February, the weather cleared again. The VII Reserve Corps sent patrols across the Talou Heights toward the quarries near Vacherauville. The XVIII Corps met strong resistance in the valleys and wooded area south of Louvemont. The III Corps fought off French counter-attacks against Fort Douaumont, but had no success in driving the French from the village. From the east, the XV Corps advanced across the Woëvre. The V Reserve Corps moved onto the Meuse Heights taking the small Ouvrage of Hardaumont to the east of Fort Douaumont and north of Fort Vaux. On the heights, recalled the Crown Prince, ‘our attack had come to a standstill and the active defensive thenceforward adopted by General Pétain swayed the balance against us’.**

  Falkenhayn’s Strategy

  No one can be certain of Falkenhayn’s goals since even the Crown Prince and his other subordinates do not clearly agree on the subject. The Crown Prince thought that his objective was Verdun. Even with the forces available to him, if he had been allowed to attack simultaneously on both banks of the Meuse and all conditions had been the same, he probably would have taken the city in the first few days. If Falkenhayn had concentrated his forces on thrusts from the Argonne and the St Mihiel Salient, he might have isolated Verdun by envelopment, a tactic the Germans often used successfully. Instead, he went for a frontal attack and on a narrow front on the right bank against the Meuse Heights where the French defences should have been the strongest.

  Map of the Argonne showing the railway and Sacred Way into Verdun, 1916.

  The first few days may give a clue to Falkenhayn’s actual objectives. After the first two days, the German troops made significant advances. General Herr pulled his troops from the Woëvre and ordered the forts of Verdun prepared for demolition. He was ready to abandon the east and the Meuse Heights. What more could Falkenhayn want than control of the heights? If he had allowed a simultaneous frontal attack on the western bank and reached the line of forts there, Verdun would have been indefensible. Despite the French government’s wishes, Joffre could have implemented his early plans and pulled his troops out of the salient into a new defensive position. The Germans could have claimed another small victory, but it would not have led to a triumphant end to the war on the Western Front. Falkenhayn wanted and anticipated French and British relief attacks, confident that his other armies would be able to check them. He wished for the French
to fight for Verdun and hoped the battle would last long enough to cause unbearable losses. Only by securing most of the Meuse Heights from which his artillery could dominate the west bank and the city could he establish his killing grounds. The French, who still held key terrain on the west bank, could be drawn further into the battle even if they still controlled part of the Meuse Heights. The French would then have had to go on the attack in an attempt to push the Germans back and secure the old fortress perimeter. If the French committed enough divisions, the German 5th Army could actually launch an offensive across the Meuse and apply more pressure or even attack from the Argonne and St Mihiel Salient if the French appeared to be reaching breaking point. For this to work, a battle of attrition had to be fought during the first month or so, if not longer and the French must lose at least two to three soldiers for every German soldier. If this was Falkenhayn’s actual plan, it could only work if the French fell into his trap and stayed in the Verdun Salient.